Rondo Veneziano

1983, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that pop’s brief and arguably less than bountiful dalliance with classical music, which peaked with the pomp of high prog had, the ‘slight return’ of Hooked On Classics aside, more or less fiddled its last. But that was to reckon without Italian chamber orchestra Rondo Veneziano, who brought guitars and synths to the classical party for La Serenissima, a neverending ‘diddle-diddle-durr’ refrain that – hey! – put the ‘rock into ‘bar-rock’ (er, ‘baroque’). This ‘waxing’ failed to scrape the UK top 50, but that didn’t stop it being ubiquitous, via guest appearances for the Rond on the likes of Pebble Mill (in 18th century clobber and spooky silver fencing masks) and Venice in Peril, an unfathomable cartoon screened during many an ITV strike, in which a bloke in a spaceship saves the canal city from watery doom by spiriting its veteran architecture away through space. Or something. All the while going ‘diddle-diddle-durr’, natch.

I remember both the animated thing with the spaceship (spooky) and the Pebble Mill appearance (very very spooky). The 18th-century-garb-and-featureless-silver-heads from the latter remain the best Doctor Who villains to have never actually been in Doctor Who, although the clockwork droids from ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’ came very close.

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH for this.. for YEARS and YEARS I’ve been trying to find proof that I didnt dream up the “silver faced classical music robots band” from my very early childhood. I wrongly presumed they were in a Hooked On classics promo or something.

Another vague but weird childhood memory to be crossed off next to the Lee Cooper Jeans cinema ad with teh dogs with glowing eyes and the car breaking down on the haunted road Shell Grip TV ad.

Just spent the last few hours trying to remember Rondo Veneziano – a friend on Facebook finally figured out the answer from my series of weak, loose clues. Then I found this site and glad that I’m not the only one who had vague memories from UK TV in the 80s about this particular act.

BUT! I have another related memory and I wondered if anyone can help.

I’m pretty sure there was a TV show that had animated opening credits with the music of Rondo Veneziano. I feel like it was a show a bit like Hart to Hart, but, Rondo Veneziano’s IMDB says nothing. In the credits, we see the musicians and their robot faces as part of the action.

Does anyone have any recollection of animated opening credits featuring their music?